Opinion

Saturday afternoon around 4:30 I was 410 words into my column for this week when my cell phone rang. The choice to interrupt a train of thought while writing usually falls to the “let it ring and go to voicemail” protocol, but in this...

As I get back into the swing of things here in South Valley, I want to offer up some random thoughts, or comments, garnered from notes taken over the past few weeks both here at home and on the road. The first observation is...

One of the first lessons one learns in any writing class is writing about experience is more natural and gets the story (or moral or lesson) across to the reader better than research writing. With that lesson in mind, I should be able to...

To the Editor: Today is Ash Wednesday, the day Christians are reminded they will return to the dust from which their sacred teachings say they come. Those teachings also tell them to do justice and let the oppressed go free. “You shall be called the repairer...

How are you doing? I mean, do you still wear your mask? Did you seriously see that the doctor that goes on TV wants us to wear three? The past few days are almost historic. Some folks from the surrounding areas of what we...

So after last week where I told you of the wonder of living in Gonzales, you might have thought I was just putting words on the paper, and you would have been right. I do love this town, and now I want to illustrate...

Time passes, locales change, friends come and go. We all experience changes, we graduate high school, some go on to college before joining “the working world” while others set straight in to building a life, and so begins the diaspora of those we knew...

If you live in South Monterey County, you are among more than 60 million rural Americans. American Community Survey statistics show that Maine and Vermont have the highest proportions of population living in rural areas (about 61%) while California has the lowest (4.9%).  If you’ve...

You may have noticed, or not noticed may be correct, that my smooth young face has been missing from this esteemed periodical for 14 days. Perhaps you were happy to not have to read my scribbling while looking for news, and wondered if my...

It’s kind of strange to start a column like that, but I have been struck with a book I have been reading and I haven’t even finished the first chapter. It’s called “Hillbilly Elegy,” by J.D. Vance. This is the guy the Republicans have...